i x86, i386, i486, i586, i686 am confused?!!

oldi · 05-20-2004, 05:49 AM

Probably this is a very simple question for all of you but i am a bit confused. When i try to download something i see diferent downloads for different architectures. But i am not sure what each architecture means and which one do i need to get. can someone explain to me what each architecture means?
I have an Athlon Xp, with an Asus 7V8X-X motherboard so which architecture am i using??

thanks a lot, sorry for my english.

trickykid · 05-20-2004, 06:36 AM

Use i686 for an athlon.

XavierP · 05-20-2004, 06:37 AM

This is a question with comes up very regularly on the boards. A search would tell you the difference.

I am moving this to the Hardware forum.

ashish.nayyar · 10-04-2006, 05:09 AM

what is i386 and i686 and how to chek your system is 32 bit or 64 bit and whats diferrence in 32 and 64 bit.

jiml8 · 10-04-2006, 09:02 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by ashish.nayyar

what is i386 and i686 and how to chek your system is 32 bit or 64 bit and whats diferrence in 32 and 64 bit.

Hijacking threads is very uncool

jiml8 · 10-04-2006, 09:04 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by oldi

Probably this is a very simple question for all of you but i am a bit confused. When i try to download something i see diferent downloads for different architectures. But i am not sure what each architecture means and which one do i need to get. can someone explain to me what each architecture means?
I have an Athlon Xp, with an Asus 7V8X-X motherboard so which architecture am i using??

thanks a lot, sorry for my english.

As you were already informed, you will want the i686 distribution for your athlon, whenever it is available.

Generally but not always a distribution for an older processor will work fine. Commonly you will find i386 distros, which you can use if an i686 distro is not available. The tradeoff is that such a distro won't be properly optimized for your particular processor. It will run and most likely will run fine, but it makes less efficient use of your processor than a distro that is labeled for your particular processor.